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GZA and RZA "Third World" (1997)

Album: Muggs Presents The Soul Assassins Chapter 1Label: ColumbiaDJ Muggs: “I had a homie named Bigga B, who did all the Unity [concerts] out of L.A. He worked for Loud at the time. He took Wu-Tang on their first promo tours, and he worked with Mobb Deep and everybody. That’s how I met Mobb Deep for the Soul Assassins album. Me and RZA had already known each other because we worked together on the Temples of Boom [song ‘Killah Kill Niggas’]. So I was like, ‘Fuck, I gotta get these guys back in the studio.’

[Ghostface Killah] was in there, and Ghost was feeling it too. But RZA was like, ‘You got enough of the Wu already, son. You got enough of the Clan on here.’

“So we got GZA in the lab, and he [normally] doesn’t write very fast. But he wrote his verse in one night. RZA was [surprised], like, ‘He wrote that in one night?’ So we got in the big studio, $2,500 a night, and we were kicking it. And [Ghostface Killah] was in there, and Ghost was feeling it too. But RZA was like, ‘You got enough of the Wu already, son. You got enough of the Clan on here.’ So RZA wrote his shit. Then GZA spit his shit. And RZA was like, ‘Yo, I’ll be back tomorrow,’ because GZA came so hard on his shit [he probably wanted some more time to come correct]. And he came back the next day with that and killed it.

“I learned so much making that album, because everyone works in different ways, and they all bring a different energy. But the end result is what we’re all about. And where they were was like, ‘Tell me if you see this.’ Like, with the rap, they want you to visualize what they were saying. And both of those dudes rhymes on that record are so visual.

“B-Real was gonna get on that Wu-Tang record too. But I was like, ‘Yo, we can’t have this turning into a Cypress album.’ So I made a second part of the song, where RZA is talking about this battle, and B-Real continues the battle. If it was just one song and not a whole album, it might’ve ended up being [a posse cut with B-Real and Ghostface on it too]. But I’m glad it ended up how it did.

“Then GZA did the video, we shot it in Connecticut. Straight military shit. It was so fucking cold. But we shot the video, and it came out dope. I love that record.”